Recently I posted a photo of my cleavage to twitter.
I know, shock horror, old lady cleavage.
What was I thinking?
Dr Jennifer Wilson from No Place for Sheep had decided that a frivolous avalanche of cleavage was the proper response to Collier’s assertion that our PM, Julia Gillard, displayed too much flesh in parliament. Collier declared publicly that in her professional opinion, cleavage was inappropriate in the work place.
I find it ridiculous that the PM’s cleavage is being discussed at all but as Dr Wilson went on to say in her blog post
However, it appears that almost every one of Ms Gillard’s physical characteristics have been fair game for the loons. Please feel free to tweet images of your fingernails,your ear lobes, your hair, your glasses, your jackets, or, if you feel like it, your arse. Do use the same hash tag, in the interests of order.
Dr Wilson also warned that :
… this exercise is entirely frivolous and will achieve nothing. Yes, I expect we will be gored by Helen Razer (after Baudrillard) for our mindless capitulation to empty symbolism.
With the idea of mindless capitulation and empty symbolism firmly in mind, I tweeted my image and joined in the light hearted protest. I wasn’t the only woman on twitter to find Collier’s position ridiculous and hundreds of women along with some men, posted images of their cleavage and other body parts to twitter, with the hashtag #convoyofcleavage. There was much hilarity to be had with humorous tweeps posting photos of their knitting instead of cleavage, there were plumbers cracks to be seen and even Piccinini’s Sky Whale made an appearance. I walked away feeling that I had been a part of a gentle piss take aimed at the gender police.
Destroy the Joint made a montage of images and as far as I was concerned that was that.
Except it wasn’t.
A friend showed me a vitriolic stream of abuse aimed at all the women who had dared flash a bit of boob.
The abuse carried on in that vein for quite some time. I started off just rolling my eyes as I read the tweets, but the more I thought about the abuse, the more I began to take it personally, until I started stomping around the house angrily muttering to myself about oppression.
I have deliberately erased the author’s name as this article is NOT really about her though her tweets were the catalyst.
This article is about the silencing of women.
I know that a number of my peers will not talk about feminism publicly because they are afraid of being mocked and humiliated for their views. It is the same with politics, current affairs, even food. It seems to me that there are some vocal inhabitants of the online space who loudly trumpet, that if you do not have a triple degree you are not allowed to discuss anything at all.
I am 47 years old and it seems like all my life, someone has been trying to shut me up.
My father tried to beat silence into me. The nuns tried to shame me into silence and now high profile women are trying to use ridicule and abuse to silence me again.
I am tired of it.
And I will publicly exhort you who are reading these words of mine, DO NOT BE SILENCED.
Do not allow yourselves to be silenced by those vociferous voices on twitter, or in the many public forums online.
Do not listen to the naysayers,telling you that you are wrong or stupid or that it can’t be done or that you are doing it wrong.
Just do what ever you want to do and ignore everything else except for the beating of your own heart and the taste of your own passion as it drives you forward to be anything you want, do anything you want, believe anything you want.
Without fear or favour.
Life is too short for small thoughts.
Comments on this entry are closed.
Good for you. I support your stand entirely.
In my view Helen Razor has completely lost the plot (an I am an older feminist than her and at least as highly educated).
There is something weird about the level of offence taken here at a harmless taking-the-piss activity.
Cheers and best wishes.
This isn’t really about Razer and I would hate to see the comment thread devolve into a spot of Razer bashing. But on the other hand I am very very tired of how she tries to silence conversation by shouting down any opposing views.
As a fellow convoy member, I had seen a couple of her tweets on the subject (although I have her blocked after a spray some months ago that was directed at me, and I realised that she’s nothing but a troll on the left) but not the whole set. I can’t imagine what has filled this woman with so much hate towards everybody and anybody around her. I’d like to pity her but honestly just can’t be bothered to give much of a fuck either way. I shall carry on regardless of Ms Razor’s approval or not.
Razer blocked me a while ago after she made sweeping claims that all mummy bloggers were unethical. I challenged her assertion and ended up tweeting in frustration that trying to talk with Razer was like trying to talk with a god botherer, because she wasn’t interested in listening, and was only interested in shouting at me. Interestingly she deleted most of her tweets, leaving me looking like I had been trolling her. *sigh* I have avoided her ever since as she makes me too stabby.
I had a massively fun time flashing my knockers for the good of Australia. Third row down, 9 boobs from the left for anybody who is interested. (This is a bigger montage than the one I originally saw I note). My tweet went to the Convoy of Cleavage with this comment: “My friends tell me I have to flash my tits for Australia. Seems legit.” Pretty obvious most of us were having fun with it. As well as making the point that the whole thing was ridiculous and that cleavage is nothing to be afraid of.
You either get that, or you don’t. Personally, if I don’t understand or agree with a person’s point of view I usually just ignore it, I don’t often spend my time frothing about it, but each to their own. I haven’t been reading her tweets, after I saw the first one or two (because people I follow were replying to her or RTing stuff) and just rolled my eyes. Refuse to treat this as anything but fun and mockery of a prudish point of view. Which is what it was.
Apparently it’s been on the news in China, Holland, India and the UK an well as Aus. Fame at last, and all I had to do was tweet a picture of my jugs? Who knew?!
I was trying to find mine so I could give you a grid reference 🙂 but it quickly descended into a deranged version of where’s wally. They are in there somewhere. And so are my skull beads 🙂
Haha! I know, the other night I was perusing the wall of boobs looking for Teegs, Karen, Michaela et al and started to question my sanity and motivation 😀
Mindless capitulation my arse.
I am tired of this. So very tired. Can Julia do ANYTHING right. No, she is not perfect and has made a mistake or six. But criticise what she does or doesn’t do NOT what she looks like or who she sleeps with. Some days I am ashamed of Ortraylians. Or a lot of them anyway.
Julia has boobs EC BOOBS and she needs to hide them, we all do. BOOBS are nothing but trouble with a capital T
Perhaps she should have them removed. Deliberately barren AND deliberately boobless. Hiss and spit.
I think you’re awesome. All my life I’ve been made to feel as though I’m trying to say something if I happen to have a little bit of cleavage showing. Mostly if I’m saying anything at all it’s that this is the top that’s clean today, because laundry isn’t my whole life and I don’t have the money for endless shirts. Or I’m not saying anything. Then people, awesome excellent women, were prepared to put pictures of their cleavage up, knowing they’d get this sort of thing (though probably expecting it from men), and really doing it in order to make a point. Not a come hither point- something like- deal with it, grow up. I felt really comforted that other women were standing up together to say this. I’m affected by the economy, I’m affected by parenting payments, I’m affected by the casualization of the workforce and I’m very much aware of a push to keep certain economics and certain attitudes out of parliament. Thank God I’m aware of it, because Razer’s poisonous vitriol towards women standing up for other women was never going to make me listen to her. I just can’t swallow that much poison. Thank you. It’s a beautiful picture, and I’ll always be grateful to you.
Thank you so much Shona for taking the time to write this beautiful comment. It is comments like yours that make me keep on writing and making and doing. Thank you
pffft!
Shakes head, walks out…
heh
I ended up finding the whole thing pretty tedious, to be honest with you, from both sides. If it had just been a bunch of women posting their babs and then that was the end of it after a day or two, then that would have been fine. But it just kept getting talked about on and on and drearily fucking on for a couple too many days and in the end, the taste that ended up being left in my mouth wasn’t one of lightness but one of vanity and narcissism. I dunno, that’s just how it felt for me.
But yeah, that person sorta kinda went just a teensy tad overboard, huh … although I do think her responses were sorta tongue-in-cheek to a certain extent.
But yeah, anyway. Whatever. I’m so over the whole thing.
Ah interesting perspective ,I didn’t see that much chatter about it in my timeline Sue but I also had been doing ceramicky things with an artist from interstate and so I wasn’t paying that much attention. Dark Mofo is on as well so that is crowding my feed more than anything.
Apologies from me for cluttering up your timeline even more *grins*
Hehe 🙂 See, you were being productive and ceramicky whilst I was stuck on the computer doing bloody transcription and spending far too much time on Twitter, hehe 🙂 Can we swap lives now?
lol being elbow deep in freezing cold mud in the middle of winter isn’t much fun, so of course we can swap.
Well I agree with you Kim. Not very eloquent today so few words. I went to a convent where the nuns wore full habits (in those dark days). I’ll tell that story one day. Oh and I am serious impressed by the title of this post, are you sure you aren’t quietly using this blog as your thesis. x
Yes, I well remember the sisters in the black and white habits of doom. ( da da da dunnn) and lol, no thesis for me, I really enjoy the research but never get around to handing in the written assignments BECAUSE ooh look shiny.